When discussing commuter rail, it’s important to have perspective. That’s why this image, taken by the Landsat 7 satellite, is helpful. It shows that the Union Pacific rail line (dotted black line) runs directly through the centers of San Antonio, New Braunfels, San Marcos, and Austin. The rail line currently carries about 30 freight trains per day. Given its strategic location, land and transportation planners believe that the best use of the UP line would be for passenger rail service. To achieve that, a new rail line would have to be built on the existing UP right-of-way or an entirely new freight rail corridor would have to be constructed. Current plans call for construction of a rail line in the SH 130 corridor east of I-35.
Dotted Black Line: Union Pacific rail line
Red Line: I-35
Blue Line: SH 130
White Lines: county lines
Green: vegetation
Red/Pink: urban areas
Gray: plowed farm land
Scale of map: 1 inch = 7 miles
Many thanks to Teresa Howard and Gordon Wells of the Texas Natural Resources Information System (www.tnris.state.tx.us/) for their hard work and patience. TNRIS, along with the University of Texas at Austin Center for Space Research (www.csr.utexas.edu/), supplied the data and graphics for this image.
The base image was collected by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus sensor on October 20, 1999. The sensor is on board the Landsat 7 satellite, which orbits the earth at a height of approximately 700 kilometers (434 miles). For more information about Landsat 7, go to www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Landsat/landsat3.html or landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
This article appears in December 22 • 2000.